Covalent bonding and hole-electron Coulomb interaction U in C(60) on Be(0001) surfaces

We have investigated the bonding nature and hole-electron Coulomb interaction U in thin C(60) films on Be(0001) surfaces using valence-band and core-level photoemission, inverse photoemission, and near-edge x-ray absorption spectroscopies. The C(60) monolayer had strong covalent bonding with the Be substrate, producing a nearly insulating film, in contrast to a metallic overlayer due to charge transfer observed on many other metallic surfaces. The effect of polarization of surrounding molecules and the image potential decreases the energy gap and U, but the bonding-antibonding contribution increases the gap at the interface. The measured U in thin solid films agrees well with a model calculation using gas-phase values. The deduced hole-electron attraction on the surface is about 0.7 eV larger than the reported hole-hole repulsion determined by Auger spectroscopy. On the basis of the surface-solid difference, the newly estimated value of U for hole-hole correlation places doped C(60) compounds nearer the metallic side of a Mott transition.